I turned to face him. His eyes widened. My jacket had long sleeves to hide the Book of Life’s text, but my eyes were fully on view. And I’d deliberately pulled my hair back into a long red braid that revealed the tips of the branches that covered my scalp.
“My power is unsettled at the moment, and some people are made uncomfortable by my appearance,” I said. “I prefer to keep my cloak nearby. Or I can use a disguising spell like Satu. But hiding in plain sight is as much a lie as any spoken form of deceit.”
I looked at each creature of the Congregation in turn, daring any of them to react to the letters and symbols that I knew were passing across my eyes.
Satu glanced away, but not quickly enough to mask her frightened look. The sudden movement stretched her poor excuse for a disguising spell. I searched for the spell’s signature, but there was none.
Satu’s disguising spell had not been cast. She herself had woven it—and not very skillfully.
I know your secret, sister, I said silently.
And I have long suspected yours, Satu replied, her voice as bitter as wormwood.
Oh, I’ve picked up a few more along the way, I said.
After my slow survey of the room, only Agatha risked asking a question.
“What happened to you?” she whispered.
“I chose my path.” I dropped the tote bag on the table and lowered myself into the chair. The bag was bound to me so tightly that even at this short distance I could feel the tug.
“What’s that?” Domenico asked suspiciously.
“A Bodleian Library tote bag.” I had taken it from the library shop when we retrieved the Book of Life, making sure to leave a twenty-pound note under the pencil cup near the till. Fittingly, it had the library oath emblazoned upon it in red and black letters.
Domenico opened his mouth to ask another question, but I silenced him with a look. I had waited long enough for today’s meeting to begin. Domenico could ask me questions after Matthew was free.
“I call this meeting to order. I am Diana Bishop, Philippe de Clermont’s blood-sworn daughter, and I represent the de Clermonts.” I turned to Domenico. He crossed his arms and refused to speak. I continued.
“This is Domenico Michele, and Gerbert of Aurillac is to my left. I know Agatha Wilson from Oxford, and Satu Järvinen and I spent some time together in France, didn’t we?” My back smarted with the memory of her fire. “I’m afraid the rest of you will have to introduce yourselves.”
“I am Osamu Watanabe,” said the young male daemon sitting next to Agatha. “You look like a manga character. Can I draw you later?”
“Sure,” I said, hoping that the character in question didn’t turn out to be evil.
“Tatiana Alkaev,” said the platinum blonde with the dreamy blue eyes. All she needed was a sleigh pulled by white horses and she would be the perfect heroine in a Russian fairy tale. “You’re full of answers, but I have no questions at this time.”
“Excellent.” I turned to the witch with the forbidding expression and the execrable taste in clothing.
“And you?”
“I am Sidonie von Borcke,” she said, putting on a pair of reading glasses and opening her leather folio with a snap. “And I have no knowledge of this so-called blood vow.”
“It’s in the librarian’s report. Second page, at the bottom, in the addendum, third line,” Osamu said helpfully. Sidonie glared at him. “I seem to recall that it begins ‘Additions to vampire pedigrees (alphabetical): Almasi, Bettingcourt, de Clermont, Díaz—”
“Yes, I see it now, Mr. Watanabe,” Sidonie snapped.
“I believe it’s my turn to be introduced, dear Sidonie.” The white-haired witch smiled beneficently.
“I am Janet Gowdie, and meeting you is a long-awaited pleasure. I knew your father and mother. They were a great credit to our people, and I still feel their loss keenly.”
“Thank you,” I said, moved by the woman’s simple tribute.
“We were told the de Clermonts had a motion for us to consider?” Janet gently steered the meeting back on track.
I gave her a grateful look. “The de Clermonts formally request the assistance of the Congregation in tracking down a member of the Bishop-Clairmont scion, Benjamin Fox or Fuchs. Mr. Fox contracted blood rage from his father, my husband, Matthew Clairmont, and has been kidnapping and raping witches for centuries in an attempt to impregnate them, mostly in the area